Mothers' Boys

by Margaret Forster

  Detective Sergeant Graham was most sympathetic.

  *

  Eric James was querulous, and when he asked for the hundredth time what in hell’s name was up, Sheila simply wanted to silence him. ‘Leo’s escaped,’ she said at last. ‘He’s run away from the prison place.’

  Eric James considered this. His face was comical, poised midway between exaggerated astonishment and glee. Finally, he grunted a version of a laugh. ‘Well, damn me,’ he said, ‘damn me. And he’s got away, eh? Managed it?’

  ‘So far.’ She was depressed by his visible excitement. ‘He hasn’t any money, he’s only got the prison overalls on. He can’t get far.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘It’s commonsense. He can’t even buy himself a bit of bread, or a ticket to anywhere.’

  ‘He can nick summat to eat, he can hitch a ride, course he’s got a chance, clever lad like our Leo.’

  She noted the ‘our Leo’ and put down the plate she was washing. He was whistling, shaking his head, enjoying this.

  ‘Nothing clever about running away,’ she said, sharply, ‘or so you always told us, and him. “Stand your ground,” you always said. “Never be a coward. Never run away from fights.”’

  He snorted, shuffled off to get the rest of his dishes on the table. ‘Fights,’ he said, chucking his knife and fork into the soapy water, which irritated her, ‘fights are different. This isn’t running away, any road, it’s escaping, like in the war. Can’t fight when yer in a camp, stands to reason. Escape’s the only way. Over the wire and out.’ He whistled again, reached for his tea-cup, but she was too quick for him and snatched it off the table herself. ‘Don’t glamorise it,’ she said, ‘he’ll be in more trouble than ever.’

  ‘If he’s caught.’

  ‘Of course he’ll be caught, I’ve told you. Then he’ll have to do longer. Where will that get him?’

  ‘If he’s caught,’ Eric James repeated, looking superior.

  Every day after that he rang her up, if she wasn’t going to be seeing him, to enquire if there was ‘any word’. She was so angry with him that she pretended she didn’t know what about and made him ask her directly. When she told him, as she was obliged to, that no, there was no news of Leo being found, he would say ‘Good lad’ in tones of admiration – ‘Good lad, giving them the slip, eh?’ – and when she was in his company he took great pleasure in marvelling at how well Leo was doing. ‘No money, eh?’ he said. ‘Not a penny on him and it’s three days now, amazing. Wonder how he’s managing it. Wonder if he’s remembering what I taught him.’

  ‘You taught him? And what might that be?’

  ‘Oh, this and that, this and that, ways and means.’

  ‘Don’t talk daft.’

  ‘Daft? Daft or not, he’s doing grand.’

  ‘You don’t know that. You don’t know he isn’t lying in some ditch with a broken leg.’ She made a great deal of noise with emptying the washing-up bowl to cover the shake in her voice. But he’d spotted it.

  ‘He’ll not be lying in any ditch, don’t you worry, lass, they’d have found him if he were. Didn’t yer say they’d search parties scouring the area for fifty miles, eh? And a farmer would see him. No, he isn’t in any ditch. He’s nice and cosy some place, biding his time, like his old grandad taught him.’

  ‘I wish his old grandad had taught him to be good instead,’ she muttered, ‘then he wouldn’t have got in this mess.’

  A week after the escape and Eric James was jubilant. It annoyed Sheila intensely. She couldn’t resist pointing out to her father what a hypocrite he was. ‘I thought you wanted him locked up for ever? I thought you’d washed your hands of him?’ she challenged him. ‘Going on now as though he’d won a medal or something, as though you’re proud of him. Changed your tune.’

  Eric James was not a bit put out. ‘He’s done his time,’ he said, complacently.

  ‘No he has not, he hasn’t done anything like his time, he’s a coward now as well as everything else,’ she flashed back. ‘You should be even more ashamed of him.’

  Her father just whistled and ignored her. All these months and months he’d disowned Leo and now, suddenly, irrationally, he seemed to be hailing him as a hero. It sickened her.

  ‘Teks pluck,’ he said, over and over, ‘escaping teks pluck.’

  ‘What?’ she shouted. ‘What? Pluck? What’s that supposed to mean? Pluck to batter a poor boy half to death, eh?’

  ‘Now then,’ he cautioned her, ‘now then! Nobody knows what went on. He wasn’t letting on. Mebbe had his reasons.’

  ‘You didn’t want to know them at the time, I noticed. Very quick you were to cast him off.’

  ‘I kept m’own counsel.’

  ‘You did what? You did not, you never stopped cursing him. . .’

  ‘I niver cursed him.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘I did not.’

  That was how their rows went, disintegrating into childish insults. It made her so angry but it left him unmoved. He simply didn’t care what he had once said – it was forgotten, he was suddenly Leo’s champion, endlessly speculating on where he would now be. He was convinced that Leo was aboard some ship, a stowaway, full of romantic notions Sheila found repugnant. But the police tended to agree that Leo had somehow found a safe place for the moment, even if it wasn’t in a ship. They said he must have found a way to eat and get new clothes, or he’d have collapsed by now and been picked up. He was most likely, they thought, to have made his way to a big city, maybe Liverpool, maybe as far as London, and it would take time to spot him.

  Life was supposed to be going on as normal again. Carole, calling to see her, said flatly that Leo running away could be a blessing in disguise. Sheila listened and enquired politely how that might be. Carole said it was a blessing because it let her, Sheila, ‘off the hook for good’. She said that Leo had no more use for her, he wanted to be finished with her. To Carole this was apparently crystal-clear. Leo had cut loose and now she must face up to this and start a new life.

  ‘What kind of life will that be, then?’ Sheila asked.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘DON’T BE SO stupid,’ Sam said, much more fiercely than he had intended. ‘Harriet,’ he began again, then stopped. They were walking. She’d told him as they walked rapidly along the lake path, meaning of course that he couldn’t see her face properly, couldn’t look her in the eye unless he leapt in front of her and stopped her. A typical Harriet ploy. Always, when there was anything important to tell him, she chose to do it when they were outside, on the move, never sitting quietly in the sitting-room, where surely the setting and atomosphere were more conducive to rational discussion. But Harriet didn’t want that, there was nothing rational about her attitude and she didn’t want any discussion. As ever, she had made her mind up, before telling him. To change her mind he would have to wage a sustained campaign and the thought exhausted him. She was so tiring like this. Her very strength tired him, however much he admired it, and he did.

  He took a deep breath, slackened his pace and to his relief she slackened hers, showing at least a willingness to hear him, or maybe only recognising that she would have to. He decided to attack the logistics of her plan first even though that was to concede he acknowledged it, which he was reluctant to do. ‘You cannot,’ he said slowly, and then, correcting himself, ‘we cannot keep it a secret from Joe that you are in hospital. It isn’t possible even if it was right, which it isn’t.’

  ‘We can,’ she said calmly, showing she’d anticipated his response, ‘we can just say I’ve gone to visit Aunt’ Mary. He’ll be pleased. He’s always complaining that I treat him like a baby.’

  ‘And why would you suddenly go to visit an old lady you haven’t visited for centuries? It wouldn’t make sense to him, he’d be suspicious at once.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t, and that’s why he wouldn’t, because I haven’t visited her in ages, guilty conscience, that would make sense to him, he’s always saying I’m so co
nscientious it bores him. He won’t even ask where she lives, I bet you, he won’t show the slightest interest.’

  ‘So. You go to Aunt Mary’s for two nights and then what happens if you have to stay in longer?’

  ‘I won’t. They said.’

  ‘Things can go wrong . . .’

  ‘Thanks very much, you’re so cheerful.’

  ‘You force me to all this. Suppose things go wrong and you have to stay in longer,, what then?’

  ‘Then I stay at Aunt Mary’s longer.’

  ‘I see. I just go on lying and lying, is that it?’

  ‘If necessary.’

  ‘And if I get found out?’

  ‘You won’t, you . . .’

  ‘If I do – come on, consider it – if I do, which seems quite likely to me, when this is a small town . . .’

  ‘No. I’ve thought of that. I’m going to have it done in Carlisle Infirmary. I asked the consultant, he works there too, it doesn’t make any difference to him, he operates there twice a week. Nobody will know me there.’

  ‘Oh God, Harriet.’

  He felt so angry, so angry and bitter. She forged ahead, inventing these complicated scenarios when there was no need for them. Underneath the bravado, the control, he knew how distressed she was, but she wouldn’t let him near it, he was kept away, his comfort rejected when he so badly wanted to offer it. If he touched her now, tried to embrace her, she would push him away, say that she couldn’t bear his sympathy, that he mustn’t offer it. The way he could help was by going along with what she wanted him to do – stay at home with Joe, tell silly stories about Aunt Mary, act normally. He wasn’t even going to be allowed to visit her. She wanted him at home, with Joe, she didn’t want to be visited. She would drive herself there and back, she would be perfectly sensible and wait until she felt fine and then drive herself back. But there he had put his foot down, he was adamant, he would drive her there and pick her up while Joe was at the boat yard. He made such a fuss that she gave in, but he knew that even that was a calculated concession. It didn’t mean much to her, that bit, the going and coming, she could afford to be gracious.

  All this talk about ways and means, all these plans to protect Joe, and meanwhile the real issue was neatly avoided. What in God’s name was a cone biopsy? She’d shrugged off his questions – it was nothing, a very minor operation, very common. But they wouldn’t do it for nothing, especially not today, with all the hospital cuts. They were doing it because they were suspicious. His heart almost stopped at the thought of those suspicions. Not Harriet, she was so healthy, it was impossible. She’d said the doctor had told her there was no cause for alarm. Right. He’d hold on to that, he was good at not crossing bridges till he came to them. But Harriet wasn’t. She’d have crossed them several times already, seen the view on the other side. And now here she was, being brave and sensible, brave for Joe. It disturbed him, this misplaced selflessness. It wasn’t good for Joe, he knew it wasn’t. She wasn’t giving him the chance to be brave himself. Worst of all, she wasn’t giving him the chance to support her. Had she thought of that? How Joe might welcome the opportunity to show his concern for her? Especially over something so harmless, something she swore was so minor. It wouldn’t involve him in any sickening worry. He agreed that would indeed be bad for Joe, any prolonged anxiety, any real threat to his mother. But a small, routine op. was perfect, he could know about it and be helpful and it would all be over before he could panic.

  They’d walked a long way by now, the lake left far behind. He allowed his dejection to show as they climbed the path through the wood. Hands in his pockets, he went on and up without looking back, in a way he would never once have done. It was how she wanted things more and more, to make her own way, go at her own pace, shut her real thoughts in her head. It wasn’t that they no longer talked, of course they talked, talked far too much, but the talking complicated problems instead of simplifying them as it used to. He couldn’t follow the strangely intricate patterns of her mind, he was always coming to dead ends while she twisted and turned into other routes. How this had happened he didn’t know, but it was all to do with Joe, with what had happened to Joe. He found himself thinking of Detective Sergeant Graham and how the policeman had been surprised at the absence of any focused hate, of any straightforward desire for revenge, at the time of the attack. But he felt faint stirrings of hate now, not for what had been done to Joe, but for what it had done to him and Harriet through Joe. He didn’t entertain any violent fantasies. He didn’t imagine himself beating up Gary what’s-his-name, or Leo Jackson. He couldn’t even in his imagination force these brutes to see what they had done, because there wasn’t anything to see. It was all invisible, invisible hurt, pain, damage . . .

  On the top of the little knoll above the wood he stood and looked down at the lake, once more in view above the trees, a great, broad sheet of pewter-coloured water on this dull day. Harriet found all this beauty soothing, it made her feel better, but he found it too sad without knowing why. Sad, everything natural so beautiful, everything man-made ugly – something like that. Except immediately he contradicted himself. Everything man-made was not ugly. How could he, an architect, say such a thing, even to himself? He felt about buildings, some buildings, as Harriet did about lakes and hills. Venice. He’d like to go to Venice again. She was up beside him now, but he wasn’t going to turn round. There was nothing more to be said. He would do as she wanted. Drive her to Carlisle. Stay with Joe. Talk about Aunt Mary. This would go on for ever, as far as he could see.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, nothing. I was just seeing Joe aged sixty being protected by you, even in your dotage.’

  ‘And that’s funny?’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘it isn’t, not really.’

  *

  ‘Any news?’ Eric James asked, as usual, and, as usual, she said there was none. ‘Good,’ he said, but before he could go into the patter he so loved, she cut in quickly, ‘Do you want any shopping? I’m going up street, to the market.’

  ‘Don’t know what yer want to do that for, they’ve ruined it, damned shame, ruined the old market. . .’

  ‘Dad, all I asked was do you want any shopping?’

  ‘You can get me a pound of best back bacon. Nowt else. I’ll get the rest meself, tomorrow.’

  ‘But if I’m going you don’t need to.’

  ‘Have to put m’time in somehow.’

  When their father’s collapse wasn’t so seriously imminent, they used to have bets, she and Carole. She said that Eric James would be digging in his blessed garden and he’d have a heart attack and that would be that, he’d be digging till the day he died, neighbours looking over their hedges at him and marvelling and setting him as an example for their own husbands. But Carole said that he’d be run over, probably by a bus. The way their father crossed roads had always been autocratic. He never waited for pedestrian crossing lights to change, hardly, in fact, used crossings at all, preferring to dash across the road when and where it suited him. Fine when he was strong and agile, but now he was neither, now he was stooped and slow and his sight not too good. But it made no difference, he still treated cars and buses as mere interruptions in his path, and Carole was right – one day soon he would be knocked down. Probably in the town, where the roads were wider and more congested. He’d stagger off the bus, then lurch from behind it into another and that would be that. Or he’d fall off one, fall off a bus. He could hardly negotiate the steps as it was. Sheila clearly remembered how, thirty years ago, he’d watched old people struggling to board buses and expressed the opinion that they shouldn’t be allowed to use them, they were a danger to other folk. Quite.

  It was odd that he wanted more bacon, surely there’d been plenty of bacon, she’d seen it in the fridge. But he was very fond of bacon, perhaps he was just eating twice as much, great fatty bacon breakfasts. He’d had them all his life, bacon and egg and fried bread, bread fried in the fat. Full of cholesterol, and loo
k at him. Leo had loved breakfasts with Eric James, especially when she supposed she’d made them seem wicked, all that fat, the way she’d gone on about them, tried to make Leo a healthy eater. Her father had laughed at her, openly scorned newfangled ideas about diet. He’d been cross when, for a while, Leo had become a vegetarian, damned stupid in his opinion, an insult to his past working life as a butcher. He wasn’t happy until he’d welcomed Leo back into the meat-eating fold, not very long ago either . . . But she couldn’t bear to think about Leo and food, it was too worrying. Alan and Eric James both said how strong Leo was, how tough, how able to draw on his own strength for a long time, but she had visions of him starving, nightmares in which he was emaciated and begging for bread. She’d lost her own appetite as a result. Every bite she took she wanted to give to Leo, it was the only thing she had to offer him. Food. It had become their currency, those last couple of years. Making his favourite dishes, lavishing all her care on perfect apple-pies, perfect hot-pot, perfect soups and broths which he loved. And bread, she’d gone back to baking her own bread because Leo loved the smell of it when he came in from school, he’d pretend to swoon, when he came in and she was lifting a cob from the oven . . .

  The shopping was soon done. She didn’t know why she bothered going to the market, there was nothing better than she could get in the shops near her. It was habit. Her mother had always gone to the market, to the butter women for eggs, to a particular stall for home-grown tomatoes. The market had been all bustle then, but now her father was right, the soul as well as the trade had gone out of it. It was depressing going there even though the revamping had made the place so clean and the new building was very smart. She got his bacon and some tomatoes for herself and she went into the fish market and got some Solway shrimps for Alan’s tea. He hadn’t lost his appetite. Eating was the biggest pleasure in his life. If it wasn’t she couldn’t think what was. Watching cricket? Fishing? Not so much any more. Not drinking, Alan had never been a drinker. His tea was so important to him it annoyed her. Maybe she was jealous. There was nothing she enjoyed as much as Alan enjoyed his wretched tea. Nothing. So what, missus, she asked herself, as she stood at the bus stop holding her shopping bag, what is your chief pleasure in life now you’re in your seventieth year? Leo. It was simple. Leo, her only real pleasure, and he was gone for good. First Pat, then Leo. Farewell to pleasure . . .